


Afterburn

by faithinthepoor



Category: Desperate Housewives
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 01:42:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1964175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithinthepoor/pseuds/faithinthepoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Fighting Talk Challange a <a href="http://bree-lynette.livejournal.com/">the bree-lynette lj</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Afterburn

She awakes disorientated and disconcerted, it’s light outside but it is not morning, the shadows are all wrong and the beam of sunlight that has decided to attack her eyes only frequents this room in the late afternoon. Her body seems to have less trouble adjusting than her mind and as if on autopilot she arches her back and stretches her limbs, her muscles tug despite her languid movements, the sensations that she feels display telltale signs of recent exertion. She turns her head to check on Penny and tries not to be resentful that her baby is sleeping peacefully while she herself is now most definitely awake. Her gaze moves to the point of disturbance in the room and she fixates on the woman who is possibly the reason that her slumber has been broken. She notes that Bree is almost fully dressed and is actually about to open the door and leave but she suddenly pauses in her actions, as though aware of Lynette’s scrutiny. “Hey, you’re awake.”

“You were just going to leave?” Bree clearly fails to detect the fact that she is annoyed, the redhead’s eyes are warm and the look on her face lies somewhere in the vicinity of rapture as she crosses the room to join Lynette on the bed.

The mattress deflects as Bree sits beside her and plays with her hair, curling the blonde strands around her fingers, “You looked like you needed the rest and I guess, as I am partly responsible for that, I thought I should accommodate you. Don’t worry I was going to call you and make sure you were up in enough time to go and get the boys, I just didn’t think I should still be here when Penny wakes up. I feel bad enough that we do, well, what we do, in front of her as it is, I think we need to work out a better solution than hoping she stays asleep.”

“You think Tom and I are scarring our baby by the fact that we haven’t moved her to another room or is it just that you are terrified of anyone learning about your tryst with me even if that someone is only an infant?” This time Bree does seem to register the edge in her voice.

“I’m not trying to tell you what to do but I won’t deny the fact that it worries me.”

“I wouldn’t be the first time that you have told me what to do when it comes to raising our kids.”

Bree looks taken aback, “I know that our doesn’t mean mine, I know that the kids are yours and Tom’s and I know I have no right to say anything, you don’t need to get mad or to remind me repeatedly. I can’t promise that I won’t do it again, sometimes I forget that my place in your life doesn’t grant me access to other areas of it but I promise that I will try.”

“I don’t see why you’d want access to other areas, you seemed happy enough to have your fun and then slink out just now.”

“I wasn’t slinking, I was exiting quietly so that you could sleep.”

“Say what you want but you might as well have just left your money on the nightstand as you walked out,” her tone isn’t so much tinged with anger as it is dripping with it and Bree looks for all the world as if she has been slapped. Bree’s reaction does give her pause but she suppresses the twinge of remorse that it causes, “Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?”

The hurt that flashes through Bree’s eyes is almost palpable and her fingers shake as she removes them from Lynette’s hair but her voice remains calm and controlled, “There doesn’t seem to be a lot of point, you appear to have already made up your mind.”

Bree’s response only serves to incense her, “You can’t even get mad like a normal person, can you?”

“So now you are angry at me because I am not angry enough?”

“Yes, no, that’s not the point.”

“Do you even know what you are angry about?”

“I am angry about many things but right at this second I am angry that you don’t care enough about me to show emotion when I say horrible things to you.”

“So I am meant to get mad just because you want it and it doesn’t matter that I don’t want to fight with you, that’s insane.”

She doesn’t want to admit that Bree has a point, “I just want some sense that I can get under your skin, that I can make your blood boil the way you do mine, that you care for me the way I care for you.”

“You’re mistaking anger for passion, they aren’t the same.”

“Like you know anything, you equate aloofness with serenity and think that being calm and collected is something to aspire to.”

“What’s so wrong with that?”

“It’s not a crime to show emotion, Bree.”

Bree takes time to consider her answer and before she speaks, she gingerly reaches out to grab Lynette’s fingers, clasping firmly when Lynette attempts to pull away, “I show you emotion all the time, I spent the afternoon showing you how I feel, why can’t you trust affection and support as being real?”

“I do, it is just that this situation is all so strange, you act one way with me in public and one way in private and I don’t know where the charade ends, I don’t know if I ever see the real you.”

The affection has returned to Bree’s eyes and even though a large part of her is spoiling for a fight she can’t pretend that she doesn’t like it when Bree looks at her like she is the centre of the universe, even if she is not sure that she can trust the feeling. “There are many things I could say but I doubt that you’d believe them. Do you think I see the real you?”

“Of course you do, I don’t change, I don’t hide who I am.”

“You are such a hypocrite,” Bree seems to be suppressing her ire, as though she doesn’t want to give into Lynette and let her have the fight that she is looking for. “So Tom knows about us then? And clearly you’ve talked about our relationship with the girls, that’s good news because it means that the next time poker gets boring you can just throw me down on the table and ravish me.”

“You know I haven’t told anyone but that’s not what I mean, I may not kiss you in public but at least I don’t compartmentalize my feelings.”

“Maybe I am just better than you at separating my emotions in certain situations because I stop to analyze what I am feeling rather than just flying off the handle, you can pretend that this the passion that I apparently lack but that’s simply an excuse you can use to try and hide the fact that you don’t have any self-control.”

“Careful Bree, you could almost be arguing.”

“I’m not going to fight with you, although I am not entirely convinced that you need two people to have a quarrel, I’m starting to think that I could just sit here quietly and you could carry on with your argument just as effectively.”

“Don’t turn this into a challenge for me, I could say far worse things about you.”

“And I could just leave; you seem to think that I am a fan of that anyway.”

“You wouldn’t even stand up for yourself?”

“Lynette, this isn’t a debate, I don’t know what this is. I can stand up for myself when I have to or when I have a point to make but that is not what this is about, this is about you wanting some sort of negative response from me that for some reason you think proves that I care about you. I have to tell you that I find this all kind of alarming, I don’t know that you know what love is.”

She feels some of the fire drain from her body and her voice is soft as she asks, “Do either of us?”

Bree’s expression is rueful, “I like to think so but perhaps that’s just something we tell ourselves to justify what we are doing. What’s all this really about?”

It’s difficult to put that into words, she was livid that Bree was going to leave without saying goodbye but that is merely a symptom of a much larger issue, “I know it’s selfish but the reason that I get angry is that it hurts me that this seems so much easier for you than it is for me. I love being with you but it’s so hard to see you outside of this setting and pretend that I don’t feel this way about you and it almost kills me to see you with Rex. I know I keep bringing up the argument that we had about punishing the boys, I don’t do that to make you feel bad, I have such mixed emotions about that day – I hate that we fought but mainly I hate that we fought about something other than our relationship, if we were really together in every sense of the word, it would be okay to fight about that kind of stuff but we are not and as much as I may want you to be part of my family you never will be and I don’t like to be reminded of that. When you leave I start to wonder what you see in me and to watch you leaving like that today, it made me feel cheap and invisible like maybe I am not worthy of you, not good enough to be a real part of your life. God, I am babbling. Is this making any sense at all?”

“Oh baby, what am I going to do with you? Sometimes, for a bright woman, you can be so incredibly stupid,” Bree’s words really shouldn’t be comforting but they are and when they come accompanied by the kiss that Bree plants on her forehead it makes it hard to believe that she could ever be angry with Bree. “Of course this is hard for me. I really did think I was doing the right thing by letting you sleep but I won’t lie, it’s easier to go if I don’t have to face you. Every time I leave this house I swear that I will never let this happen again, that enjoyable as this is, it has to stop because the moment I am out of that door all I can think about is that I just committed adultery and that I violated every single principle that I believe in. I swear to myself that it’s over and that promise lasts right up until the next time I see you, in whatever setting that may be, and my heart does all of those things that they write about in romance novels and songs, things that I never believed happened in the real world. Maybe I don’t know what love is but whatever this is, I think it’s damn close. All I know is that I am truly happy when I am with you, even when you are being a crazy person and wanting to start fights for no reason,” she pauses briefly, awaiting a response and when Lynette doesn’t bite she smiles and squeezes Lynette’s hand before continuing, “this is going to sound so clichéd and I can’t quite believe that I am going to say it out loud but when I am with you, I feel complete and I don’t want to lose that.”

Lynette moves over on the bed and pulls Bree down to join her, she studies Bree’s face intently before pushing the strands of fire out of Bree’s eyes, “I am so sorry that I am a crazy person at times. I love you too.”

“You feel better now?”

“A little.”

“Cause I do need to go and you have to pick up the boys, so we don’t have time for an argument.”

“Arghhhhhhh, you are going to be teasing me about this for a while aren’t you?”

“I was planning on it but now I am more concerned about the fact that you just sounded like you learnt English from a pirate.”

“Arghhhhhhh,” she over-emphasizes the sound this time and Bree giggles in response, “I possibly did, I am quite fond of parrots and I think I could pull off an eye patch, I definitely could deal with having a crew that I could command and at least it would explain why I need to fight.”

“Would you have really felt better if I’d let this develop into a full blown argument?”

“I guess I’ll never know.”

“How about this, how about I declare this afternoon as our first official fight as a couple.”

“You can’t just pretend we had a fight.”

“Why not? I think you should get points for trying, you did try hard and this way you can check the box on the increasingly bizarre list of relationship criteria you carry in your head that says ‘Bree cares enough about me to argue with me’,” Bree replies with an indulgent smile.

“I appreciate the sentiment but it’s not necessary.”

“That’s a shame,” she covers Lynette’s lips with her own briefly, “cause I was really, really looking forward to some make-up sex.”

Lynette can’t think of a single thing that seems more reasonable than Bree’s plan, “And then we really should celebrate surviving our first official fight, after all it’s a big step.”

“Absolutely! So, Miss Lynette, is it possible to have the pleasure of your company tomorrow afternoon?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” she responds before sealing their arrangements with a searing kiss.


End file.
